Bluebonnets and museums, March 29 to April 15

Our travels through the Southwest                           March 29 to April 15, 2016

Before we left Las Cruces, NM, we made our way to Mesilla, NM, a little town just to the south.  This little town had done a good job of preserving the “plaza” with shops on all four sides.  Even the many of the original adobe buildings were still in use, including this building built in 1850.  It was once a courthouse, the capitol of New Mexico, and the jail in which Billy the Kid was briefly incarcerated. 

One of the shops on the plaza in this little town was a bookstore packed to the rafters with every title imaginable.  What a find!  We liked to learn about the geology of the area in which we travel (you may have noticed that!) and I found Roadside Geology of New Mexico to add to our collection.  Score!

Of course we had to search out the local microbrewery, which jut happened to be down the road from the University of New Mexico at Las Cruces.  It was a very small place on a busy corner and very popular!  I don’t know why it had this name, but they certainly knew how to brew beer

We left Las Cruces, NM, on March 29 to make our way to Odessa/Midland, Texas.  This was a part of Texas that we had not explored and we were curious to learn a little bit about the Permian Oil Basin in this part of Texas.  Our RV park was perfect…”Midessa Oil Patch RV Park” and, although adequate was not ritzy by any means.  It was located between the two cities, in the middle of businesses geared to the oil industry.  

Wednesday, March 30, we hopped in the pickup and drove to the Permian Basin Oil Museum, just down the road.  Fascinating place…we spent four hours there exploring the outside exhibits, reading a out the geologic history of the area, and learning how to find and drill for oil.  

The outdoor displays fascinated Jerry, who applied his engineering brain to figure it all out.

Who knew there were so many types of pumpjacks, oil drillers, and oil wells!?!  We did learn that the oil “pockets” are not made up of lots of dead dinosaurs and ancient flora, but made up of zillions of one-celled diatoms that lived in the ancient seas!  Someone needs to tell Sinclair Oil Company.

One would think that west Texas country full of oil drillers would have a microbrewery or two, but nope!  The only purported microbrewery was called Garden View Beer Garden.  Behind that sign was a greenhouse!  One of the greenhouse buildings had been “converted” to a beer garden.  Not great!  Sadly, the server had not knowledge of beer and thought we should try their Budweiser products.  I don't know who was more disappointed!

March 31, our last day in the area took us to University of Texas, Permian Basin in Odessa.  The school was founded in 1969, has about 7,000 students and exists to support the oil industry.  The city fathers had built a replica of Stonehenge on the campus to “draw the tourists into Odessa from I-20.”  We were certainly curious.  The replica had the same footprint but was only 70% as tall as the original in England.  Someday, when we travel to Great Britain, we’ll see the real thing.

Also on the UTPB campus was the Presidential Archives and Leadership Library.  After the assassination of John Kennedy, the folks of Odessa began developing an archive (museum) dedicated to the office of the Presidency.  It was quite impressive!  The best part was the

docent, a lady in her 70’s, who loved the museum and had all sorts of facts to impart.  Her favorite president was Dwight Eisenhower and she made sure his display in the library was the best.

The first home of George H W and Barbara Bush had been placed on the library grounds.  It was a very modest home for a little family of 3.  George said it was here in Odessa that he and Barbara learned to be Texans.  We also visited the boyhood home of George W Bush in Midland.  This house, a little more robust, was still quite modest.  These Texans are proud of the Bush’s!

Friday, April 1, we departed Odessa in the middle of quite a rainstorm.  Can you see how deep the water is on the pick-up coming toward us?  Fortunately Abe is nice and tall and we didn’t have any problems. 

We headed south on US 87 and eventually US 83 to get to San Angelo, TX.  We had reservations at San Angelo State Park for 3 nights.  We don’t often stay in state parks because Abe is pretty big and we don’t want to dodge tree branches, but we took a change on this one and we were glad we did!  We had a huge site with a view of the (dry and distant) lake.  We were about 5 miles from town so it was even convenient! 

One of the reasons we chose to stay here is because this park is home of a bison herd and the official Texas state longhorn herd.  One morning the longhorns were right up at the fence by the road.  Those horns are amazing!  This young man posed nicely!

San Angelo was home to one of a string of forts to protect the Texas frontier in the 1800’s.  Several buildings had been restored and a museum had been put together so that was our first destination.  Fort Concho, on the bank of the Concho River (which runs thru San Angelo) was home to the Buffalo Soldiers.  The fort protected the nearby Butterfield Stage Line stops, five cattle drive trails, and fought with the Comancheros.  Must have been a busy place!  The picture is of the original hospital building.  

One of the barracks housed a Telephony Museum, including these early wall models.  Jerry and I both remember having something like the middle one in our homes on the farm.

We wandered through the park along the river near the fort and found this working Aeromotor windmill.  We learned that Aeromotor windmills were developed by a man from Chicago, at one point produced in Argentina, but have found a permanent home in San Angelo.  They are still being produced and the West Texas cattlemen rely on the windmills to water their stock to this day. 

The other structure that caught our eye in the Concho River Park was the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts.  The dramatic roof line is visible from quite a distance and we were sorry it was closed while we were there.

The state park was full of wild flowers and cacti and both caught my eye.

         

Sunday, April 3, we found Calvary Lutheran Church in San Angelo.  We weren’t surprised to find that we had several Lutheran churches from which to choose.  This area of Texas along with the Texas hill country, was settled by German immigrants in the mid-1800’s.  This was another pretty church with a small, aging congregation.  They had a band that led the music and projected words of hymns on the screen…neither was very effective.  We’ve come to expect coffee, goodies, and conversation following the service, but not this time.  We did visit with a man maybe even older than us who was from the Fredericksburg area.  That’s where we were headed next and we gladly made notes on his advice.  I’ll tell you how that all turned out later.

Monday, April 4, we were off to Kerrville, TX, and Buckhorn Lake RV Park Resort to spend a week with RVing friends, Larry and Kathy, we had met in California.  In fact, Larry and Kathy had asked us to join an informal RV group called “Jello Travelers”.  Other Jello Travelers would be at the RV Resort also.  In the photo we’re having breakfast at “Cracker Barrel”.  We quickly learned that this group likes to eat!  They took us to a little lunch place out in the middle of nowhere (and that’s saying something in Texas!) called “Alamo Springs Café”.  We had the best burgers on the planet!!!

We explored the town of Kerrville, on the Guadalupe River.  This view of the riverpark from downtown gives you a glimpse of a pretty bike path that follows the river for about 8 miles.  We had a great ride!

One of our primary targets in the area was this museum in Fredericksburg, hometown of General Nimitz.  The museum was absolutely amazing, giving the history of the struggles between China and Japan, the bombing of Pearl Harbor and every major battle in the Pacific.  It took us two days to see the museum and take it all in.  The museum is housed in part of the Nimitz family’s old hotel, which is the building you see on the right in the photo.  

I’m standing by a statue of General Nimitz in the courtyard. 

Fredericksburg was settled by Germans in the mid-1800’s.  We found a German restaurant on main street to have Jager Schnitzel (veal cutlet with mushroom gravy), one of our favorite dishes when we lived in Germany.

We were impressed that the museum acknowledged all the branches of the service and their efforts in the war in the Pacific, including the Merchant Marine, in which Jerry's dad Jim served.  Although I didn’t see much mentioned about P-51s specifically (Dad’s airplane), of course there was a lot of discussion about the Army Air Corps’ contribution to the effort.  Obviously it was a lot to take in, and I think both Jerry and I realized how much we didn’t know about this important piece of history. 

Back at the RV resort, the photo above was a shot of some of the motor homes parked along the RV park lake.  This was quite a place!  There was even an “adults only” section, where people younger than 16 could not go!  Maybe we’ll stay in that section next time!  Our site was too small for us…barely had room to park the truck…and we backed up against the maintenance building.  Twice the garbage truck came at 5:30 to empty the dumpsters.

Seeing the Texas bluebonnets was also high on our list.  We took several drives in

the area to enjoy the color display.  Because this part of Texas had had a wet spring, all kinds of flowers were out in profusion.  This silly photo was taken on the Willow City Loop drive.  For about a mile along this little road, each fence post was topped with a cowboy boot.  The one in the photo was particularly fancy. 

I could bore you spitless with all of the flower pictures that I took, but I won’t.  I will show you this one of Jerry and both blue-bonnets and Indian paintbrush.  These two   flowers were in abundance along the roadsides.  We saw pastures full of bluebonnets with a few trees, cacti, and farm equipment added. 

After we finished up with all the museums in Fredericksburg, we drove further east to see the Lyndon Johnson Ranch.  We had been here years ago with Jill and Joy and elected not to go through the ranch house again, but took the drive through the ranch.  These huge trees along the drive created such a pretty shady archway.  The Johnson ranch, in the middle of the Hill Country, was quite a place to bring all those dignitaries years ago!

We had met a retired gentleman at the church in San Angelo, who had grown up in this area.  In fact, he had attended the little Lutheran Church just across the Perdenales River from the LBJ Ranch.  He encouraged us to make his old church our Sunday morning stop, and so we did.  The photo is taken from the ranch drive, just across the river.  It was a pretty church indeed (note to family – the altar area reminded me of First Lutheran in Monmouth.)

Once again, we found a friendly welcoming church to visit.  Every church “spins” the service a little differently and this one was no exception.  Just before the sermon was “T-time”.  Not tea time not golf T time but testimony time!  Rather unique for us Lutherans!  Anyway, a local vet spoke about his experience meeting God while he treated his very sick mare.  It was quite an emotional story, as you might imagine.  I felt sort of sorry for the Pastor who had to deliver a sermon after that, but he did ok.

Tuesday, April 12, we were off to Abilene, TX, as we started to make our way northeast toward Illinois.  We had not been to Abilene before and it seemed like a good place to explore.  We quickly learned that Abilene is home to the museum of the 12^th Armored Division.  Can’t get enough of those museums!  This armored division was only in existence to fight World War II and saw action in both the Pacific and European theaters.  One of the staff members told us that the veterans from this division, now in there 80’s and 90’s, have had a very active group to maintain the archives.  We were amazed to see so many personal pictures of these GIs during WW II, personal letters, and uniforms of all kinds.  It was another very well done museum and we would certainly recommend it.

Thursday, April 14, we left Abilene and made the long journey (200 miles!) to Lawton, Oklahoma, where we once lived.  While Jerry was in the army in 1970 and 1971, he took advanced training here in Fire Direction Control.  Instead of using his new knowledge in Viet Nam, he became the gardener for the commanding general of Fort Sill, Roderick Wetherill for awhile.

We easily found the general’s house and were shocked and appalled at the sad state of his yard!  GI Jerry would never have permitted the grass to look this shabby!

It had been a day or two since the last museum so we found some of those to visit in Lawton/Fort sill, too.  Jerry is standing in front of the field artillery museum on the post.  Apparently it has been here for years, but we had not seen it before.  This was another impressive museum, delivering the history of artillery back to Biblical times! 

Following Jerry’s stint as General Wetherill’s gardener (you should ask him about the back story sometime!) he was sent to Babenhausen, Germany, and was assigned to an 8-inch artillery unit.  We found a similar artillery piece among the numerous pieces of artillery displayed on the grounds of the museum.

Lawton was home to the Museum of the Plains, and, of course we had to see it!  I’m standing by a life-sized replica of a prehistoric bison that once inhabited this area.  This museum would be the perfect place to bring our granddaughter Lauren when she’s a little older.  There were many hands-on activities to engage kids as they learned the history of the area.  They even had a tornado simulation, in which we sat in a “basement” as an F-4 tornado raged above our heads.  In the 1979 an F4 tornado 1.5 miles wide tore through Wichita Falls, TX, and then came north to Lawton, OK.  Millions of dollars of damage occurred, as well as the loss of many lives. 

When we lived here I worked as first an ER nurse and then a general duty nurse at Southwestern Clinic Hospital.  I have memories of a sweet little hospital, founded by a group of doctors at the turn of the last century.  I worked on the first floor, which was a combination medical-surgical, and obstetrics unit.  A graduate nurse, Brooksie, was on call for all the laboring moms.  Wow unto the floor nurse who had a mom-to-be admitted on Brooksie’s night off!  Yep, happened to me.  I was never so scared in my life.  Fortunately the OB on call came in and baby-sat the mom-to-be!  Imagine my shock when we drove by this old hospital!  It had stood empty since 1979!  It had trees growing out of the chimney, the windows were boarded up, and the entrance (above) was overgrown with weeds.  Very sad!  Happily, a new hospital had been built on the southwest side of town and it looked amazing!

We did find our old house, or we think we did!  Some of you reading this have visited us when we lived in this house.  Does this look familiar!?  We remember this house looking a lot cuter but 1970 was a long time ago!

We will soon be in Illinois with lots more adventures to report.  Until next time….

Arizona and New Mexico: Baseball and the Desert March 4, 2016 to March 27, 2016

The last blog ended with our stay at Emerald Cove, CA, on the Colorado River.  From there we crossed into Arizona and headed for Wickenburg, AZ, about 60 miles NW of Phoenix.  We had stopped here overnight last year on our way north and knew this campground to be a good one.  We spent 4 nights here, “treading water” until we could get into the Sun City campground where Jon and Norma Owens and Deb and Brian Kennelly were parked.

We wandered the streets of Wickenburg and found a little museum with this sculpture out front, called “Thanks for the Rain.  Wickenburg is famous for its team roping events, held in many different venues around Wickenburg.  

Wickenburg is also famous as the location of the Vulture Mine.  Although the Vulture was the largest producing gold mine in Arizona, it never paid off for its investors or its discoverer, Henry Wickenburg.  It shut down for good in 1942. Now, it was a popular tourist attraction, luring visitors from nearby Wickenburg, the town named for the hapless Henry, who may or may not have posed as the prospector in the photo with Jerry.

Sunday, March 6, we chose a Lutheran Church in Prescott, AZ, since we wanted to explore that area as well.  We found First Lutheran Church, a Wisconsin Synod congregation.  As always we found the congregation very welcoming, but very small in this lovely big church.  How long will this church survive with their aging membership?  After church we explored downtown Prescott and wandered through some model homes on the NE side of the city.  Prescott is one of the cooler places to live in Arizona, due to the city’s elevation. 

Tuesday, March 8, we joined the Owens’s and the Kennelly’s at Paradise RV Park and Resort in Sun City.  Many of you may not know how we’re connected to these two couples…and there are many links!  Jon Owens is the big brother of my K-12 best friend Ardith.  Jon and Norma went to the same high school as Jerry and I but are two years older.  They’ve lived in Renton, WA, a suburb of Seattle for many years.  Brian and Debbie Kennelly also went to the same little high school in west central Illinois.  Brian and Debbie are two years younger than we and were in the same class as my brother, Roger.  Debbie and Norma are sister and Brian’s brother Phil was in our high school class.  Brian and Phil’s mom, Mary was our Latin teacher and one of our favorites in high school.  Teddy, Brian and Phil’s dad, was one of Jerry’s baseball coaches.  Yep, a small world!

We're still learning about this RV lifestyle and Paradise RV park gave us some more lessons.  This is a huge park for 55+ folks and caters to snowbirds.  We saw lots of license plates from the northern tier of states, as well as Canada.  The snowbirds really got into decorating their campsites and making them their own.  This one was across from Jon and Norma.

The whole point of meeting in the Phoenix area was to attend spring training for the Seattle Mariners, Jon and Norma’s favorite baseball team, and the Chicago Cubs, favorites of Brian, Debbie, and Jan.  Jerry put up with all of us and frequently reminded us of the successes of his team, the St. Louis Cardinals.

We had not been to spring training before but, luckily, Jon and Norma were old hands at this and showed us the ropes.  We learned that it’s invaluable to attend the morning practices.  The Mariners players made themselves very available to the fans who turned out to watch their drills.  It was relatively easy to get autographs and to talk with the players.  The Mariners were particularly responsive to the kids in the crowd and made it a point to stop and talk.The boys in the photo had plastic sleeves full of baseball cards.  Every time a player walked by, they flipped through their binders trying to find the right card for that player to sign.  Very sweet!

The night we arrived, Jon and Norma had invited one of their classmates, Regina Morse Shelton, who lives in Phoenix, to come for dinner.  We covered all the teachers, classmates, and gossip of Spoon River Valley High School and loved every minute!

Jon and Norma’s younger daughter, Christie, her husband, Rennick, and their daughter Alyssa arrived on Thursday to join us for spring training and some ballgames.  They stayed in Jon and Norma’s motor home, Jon and Norma stayed with Brian and Debbie, and we were parked several blocks away in the pet section!

If you need to know whom the Mariners played, what the scores were, or who made significant plays, you’ll just have to read someone else’s blog…not this one!  Even though I claim to be a Cubs fan, I didn’t know the teams or their stories.  My primary purpose was to take photos and enjoy the “ambience” of the ballpark…hot and dry!  I can tell you that we saw games at the Mariner’s stadium in Peoria.  They shared the complex with the San Diego Padres.  The stadium was about 15 minutes from our RV park and easy to reach.

Friday, March 11, Jon et al decided to go to Scottsdale to see the Mariners play the Giants.  The tickets were expensive, even to sit on the berm in the sun, so the Kennelly’s and we chose to explore old town Scottsdale instead.  Jerry, true to form, found a microbrewery for lunch, “Two Brothers Taproom.”

We rendezvoused in Old Town to explore the touristy shops with the baseball fans.  Brian and Jerry really got into the Native American theme.  Silly guys!

Sunday, March 13, it was time to pull up stakes and head to Mesa to be closer to the Cubs spring training stadium, Sloan Field.  Who knew Phoenix was so huge!  It was almost 60 miles from Sun City to Mesa…just across town.  We settled in to Val Vista Village RV Park and prepared to watch some awesomeness from the Cubbies.

This RV Park was also a snowbirds' haven and catered to us retired folks.  There were activities galore...woodworking shop, an entire building dedicated to fabric arts, four pools, beauty shop, line-dancing around the pool, and several fire pits.  We spent several evenings on the patio enjoying happy hour, watching the sunset and re-hashing the day's events at the fire pit.  Tough duty!

Monday morning, March 14, we were off to see Cubs' spring training.  We knew that they had just opened their new stadium, which they didn't share with another team, as many did.  The architect designed the field to resemble Wrigley Field, and, of course, we found lots of photo opportunities.

Brian, Debbie, and I were quickly disappointed in the Cubs lack of concern for their fans.  The players were very inaccessible, the ground crew made us feel very unwelcome, we suffered a sad lack of bleachers and Porta-Potties.  Yikes!  We decided the Cubs’ architect should have visited the Peoria Sports Complex.  We also found that tickets to the Cubs’ spring training games at home were quite expensive.  It would have been cheaper to purchase tickets at the ballpark, but the ball-park was sold out…all the tickets had gone to third party providers like Stub Hub, who added about 25% to the ticket price.  Once again, we Cubbies fans were rather disgusted. 

It was a struggle, but Brian did manage to get a couple of autographs, including this one of Wilson Contreras, a catcher.  Note the huge green fence barrier. 

We saw lots of fans watching practice and lots of Dads and kids playing catch, while waiting for an errant fly ball to come their way.  My favorite was this little girl, who had quite an arm!  Her Cubs' T-Shirt is green for the St. Patrick's Day game.

Tuesday, March 15, friends from Anacortes, WA, joined us for lunch at Wilderness Brewing in Gilbert, AZ, just south of Mesa.  Chuck and Bev’s son and daughter-in-law live in Gilbert, a good place to visit, away from the rain and cold of Anacortes.  Jerry and Chuck, although about 10 years apart in age, are cut from the same cloth!  Chuck was an engineer at Boeing for many years, working with United Airlines.  These Anacortes Lutheran Church friends have made us feel very welcome in Anacortes.

Tempe, just west of Mesa, is home to the Arizona State University Sun Devils, and was an interesting non-baseball place to explore.  The Sun Devil football stadium, easily visible on our route to Cubs games, caught our eye.  We were directed to the Student Athlete Center, to view the football field.  (It was always our policy to smile, ask permission, and be completely honest in our quest for entry into non-public areas.  Worked every time!).  On our way up in the elevator, we met a lady who was the Sun Devil team’s education specialist.  We explained our purpose (with our beaming open, honest faces and charm turned on to 1,000 watts) and she told us to go to the 7^th floor where we would get great photos of the stadium.  Indeed!  You’ll notice the stadium is in complete disrepair but they expected to have the stadium ready for football in August!  On our way down to the first floor, we were once again joined by the education specialist and one of the football players.  He shook all our hands, was very polite, and “sirred and ma’amed” us all over the place.  We were charmed.

The parking deck we used was across the street from the "university hill” and we watched these two young men climb to the top.  What views they must have had!

After a delicious lunch on the ASU campus, we decided to explore Camelback Mountain, the peaks on the east side of Phoenix.  The profile of the mountain suggested a kneeling camel with two humps and was rather interesting geologically.  The granite that makes up part of the head of the camel dates back 1.5 billion years ago. The puzzle to geologists, though, was that most of the mountain, including the hump, was made up of red sandstone from a measly 30 million years ago. There were spots on the mountain where the billion and a half years older and much, much heavier granite lay right on top of its younger, lighter neighbor. How exactly it got there, though, nobody yet knows.  Another Arizona mystery!

We drove all around the mountain and stopped to check the views and explore at every opportunity.  The photo of Jon and I shows Phoenix well below us.

Partway up the mountain we spotted an open house sign in one of the swanky neighborhoods and couldn’t resist stopping and exploring.  Once again, we used our wide-eyed tourist approach and the realtor invited us in.  I suspect he was bored!  He gave us a lengthy discussion on the Phoenix area real estate market and we got to see a gorgeous million dollar home with amazing views. 

We did a little hiking in the Echo Canyon Park, through the sandstone cliffs.  We weren’t nearly adven-turous as some, who were off to the summit of Camelback Mountain on a trail that quickly gained 1200 feet of elevation.  We were more interested in selfie shots…like this one of us on the hike.  We were fortunate to be there in time to see many of the cactus varieties blooming, like this ocotillo at left and the blooming barrel cactus at right.

Our final ballgame was at the Camelback Ranch Stadium in Glendale, vs. the White Sox, on Saturday, March 18.  In true Cubbies fashion, we lost 3 – 2.  This was the hottest day yet and we just about melted in the 90^o sunshine!  We did get to see one of the Cubs’ stars, Anthony Rizzo, play.

As we entered the ballpark, we saw this little guy in his stroller.  Mom was a Cubs fan and Dad rooted for the White Sox, so he was the product of a mixed marriage!  He seemed to be taking his dual role very seriously!

Saturday, March 19, was a get-ready-to-depart day for the Kennelly’s, and us so we didn’t schedule a ballgame or a practice to watch.  We did find time, however, to go to the huge Mesa Market Place Swap Meet.  I’ve never seen such a large collection of stuff!  It was advertised as the ultimate in recreational shopping covering four huge buildings.  We saw everything from camping equipment to cacti.  I think every snowbird in the Phoenix area came to the swap meet on the Saturday we were there.We managed to walk through two of the four buildings and that took several hours.  Living in a motor home certainly reduced our need to buy stuff!

Sunday, March 20, we pulled up the jacks and headed to the Lazydays KOA RV Resort in Tucson.  We had read about this campground in one of the blogs we follow and knew that this park was unique.  It had two acres of solar panels, beneath which RVs could park.  Clever!  The lady who checked us in told us that in the winter these panels provided 85% of their power needs and in the summer, when the park was quieter, the park sold power back to the grid.  Smart!  We chose not to park underneath so that our DirecTV satellite receiver would bring in the March Madness ballgames.  Priorities!

Tuesday, March 22, we had lunch with Visalia friends, Maureen and Lynn Heiges, who were travelling in their 5^th wheel.  They had parked on the north side of Tucson and periodically were in Phoenix to visit their daughter and her family.  After lunch we explored downtown Tucson, including this beautiful old church, The Cathedral of St. Augustine.  It was completely restored for its 100^th anniversary during 1966 – 1968.  Beautiful inside, it has a sloping floor so all that 1,250 parishioners can see the altar.

Exploring downtown Tucson was hot work, so, true to form, we found a microbrewery to slake our thirst.  This one was called “Thunder Canyon Brewery” and had a rather rustic, industrial feel to the tasting/dining room.

Wednesday, March 23, we drove northeast of Tucson to Oracle, AZ, to tour Biosphere 2, an "Earth systems science research facility."  Back in the early 90’s, this complex was used to research the effects of a closed biological system on plants and humans.  Eight men and women spent two years sealed inside Biosphere 2 and were surprisingly self sufficient, although they had problems including low amounts of food and oxygen, die-offs of many animal and plant species, squabbling among the resident scientists and management issues.  Biosphere 2 was now owned by the University of Arizona and longer a closed research site, and we were able to tour most of the buildings. 

One of our reasons to stop in Tucson was to visit former Anacortes friends, Jan and Chuck Mallory.  After 25 years in the Northwest, they chose to re-locate to this sunny, warm climate!  They had a beautiful home in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains, not far from Biosphere 2.  

Thursday, March 24, we drove to the top of Mount Lemmon, a 9,100 peak in the Catalina Mountains, following a route recently designated as a Sky Island National Scenic Byway.  We drove through many of these spires called hoodoos. This was a very popular recreation area for Tucson residents and we shared the road with lots of bicyclists who rode the 27 miles to the top, gaining about 6,000 feet.  Whew!  We climbed out of the Sonoran desert, full of Saguaro cacti, to pine trees and snow.  

From near the top of Mount Lemmon, looking down the backside to the north, we could see Biosphere 2, sitting way below us in the desert.  We ran out of time to see all that we wanted to see in the Tucson area and will return here next winter.

Friday, March 25, it was time to hit the road again; this time to Las Cruces, New Mexico.  We chose this spot for two reasons…1) we hadn’t been here before, and 2) there was a Lutheran Church where we could attend services on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  We arrived in time to easily make the 7 PM service at Trinity Lutheran, and looked forward to returning on Easter.

Saturday, March 26, was another day to explore.  We drove about an hour north of Las Cruces to the White Sands National Monument.  We found out that these white dunes aren’t silica…usual sand…but gypsum, washed down from the mountains.  Water settled in Lake Lucero, which held water only part of the year.  As the lake dried out, the prevailing southwest wind broke down the deposits into crystals of gypsum and piled it into dunes.  You’ll notice the wind was blowing strongly the day we were there.  We saw lots of folks climbing the dunes with their snow saucers, to the ride the dunes to the bottom. The museum displays told us that this area has been inhabited for the last 11,000 years, just after the last ice age.  Part of the diet consisted of mammoths!  They knew this because mammoth prints had been found in the mud of the basin.  Obviously this whole area was a lot wetter then. 

The monument was surrounded by White Sands Missile Range and the route between Las Cruces and the monument closed during testing.  The closures average twice a week for about an hour.  Wouldn’t it be interesting to see that happening???

In the afternoon we drove further north to Alamogordo to see the New Mexico Museum of Space History.  The museum presented a detailed picture of the development of the US’s space program, beginning with Germany’s V-2 rocket in the 1940’s; Operation Paperclip which brought German rocket scientists to the US after WWII; and the role New Mexico played in the research and development of the space program.  The museum included five floors of displays; a Hall of Fame of astronauts, scientists, and even Walter Cronkite; and a Space Park of rockets, missiles, and rocket engines.  It was a lot to take in and we quickly realized how little we knew about this piece of history. 

Easter Sunday, March 27, we went to back Trinity Lutheran Church, a small congregation full of warm, welcoming people.  We were invited to the after church brunch and loved visiting with the church members, snowbirds, and their interim pastor.  We leave Las Cruces on Tuesday to go to the Midland-Odessa, TX, area and learn about the Permian Basin Oil Field.

More to come!!!